For Those Left Behind
by SailorMartin3
Summary: A desperate prayer yields an unexpected result.
1. Chapter 1

**Part 1**

The fat lady sighed as she watched the now-empty hall in front of her portrait hole. All of her Gryffindors were now safely inside Gryffindor Tower. Well, as safe as they could be given the circumstances. The past year was beginning to tell on everyone. But in no one was it more obvious than the older students.

These students not only had the task of keeping all those under them well-behaved and obeying the rules, but now had the added task of trying to keep their spirits up. The halls these days were filled with fear and silence, broken only by the screams of those who were being tortured for detention. There was no smiling, joking, or pranking going on.

A few days prior, the actions of the group known as the DA had come to a grinding halt as one of their own was taken and tortured severely for trying to release a first year. This not only demoralized the DA but built the terror of the younger students to a fever pitch. The fat lady was sure that the DA wasn't finished trying to bring down the administration that they were now under, but it was expected that they would need to regroup.

Headmaster Snape puzzled the fat lady. She remembered him somewhat from his days at Hogwarts, mostly because of his friendship with Lily Evans. Sure he wasn't a friendly personable young man then, but he wasn't the silent evil man he was now either. And she could have sworn that he felt something for Ms. Evans. Why would he support a man who hated everything about his one-time friend? She remembered back to the last time she saw him before he became a teacher…

* * *

><p><em>The young man had been standing outside the portrait hole for hours. Just now he was arguing with one of her Gryffindors.<em>

"_Please, I need to see her."_

"_Why? She doesn't want to see you. I can't blame her after what you did. Personally, I don't know why she was ever friends with you in the first place."_

"_Tell her if she doesn't come out and talk to me, I will spend the entire night out here and I don't care what happens."_

_Mary sighed, "All right, I'll tell her, but I don't see that it will make any difference."_

_Mary went inside the common room and several minutes passed as the young man paced up and down in front of her. Finally, she opened up to allow Ms. Evans to exit wearing her bathrobe. The young man started immediately with what he was trying to say, as if worried she would disappear on him._

"_**I'm sorry."**_

_**"I'm not interested."**_

_"__**I'm sorry!"**_

_"__**Save your breath."**_

_It was obvious that Lily was not interested in explanations for whatever had happened between them._

_"__**I only came out because Mary told me you were threatening to sleep here."**_

_"__**I was. I would have done. I never meant to call you Mudblood, it just – "**_

_"__**Slipped out?"**_

_The young man winced and tried to explain once more._

_**"It's too late. I've made excuses for you for years. None of my friends can understand why I even talk to you. You and your precious little Death Eater friends – you see, you don't even deny it! You don't even deny that's what you're all aiming to be! You can't wait to join You-Know-Who, can you?"**_

_**He opened his mouth, but closed it without speaking.**_

_"__**I can't pretend anymore. You've chosen your way, I've chosen mine."**_

_Did the young man really want to join that horrible wizard that was trying to kill all the Muggles and Muggleborns? Why would he want to do that?_

_"__**No – listen, I didn't mean – "**_

_" – __**to call me Mudblood? But you call everyone of my birth Mudblood, Severus. Why should I be any different?"**_

_**He struggled on the verge of speech, but with a contemptuous look she turned and climbed back through the portrait hole…**_

_She didn't see what the fat lady saw as the young man turned away. There were tears coursing down his face and a look so devastated in his eyes that the fat lady felt tears gather in her own._

* * *

><p>She could have sworn that after that he would never have gone through with joining. There was something about the look on his face that said he cared very deeply for her Gryffindor. She sighed.<p>

What was the use in wondering what could have been? It was obvious now that he _had _joined You-Know-Who. What was the need to know the reasons why?

Back to her own Gryffindors. Something had to be done, but what? The older students were doing what they could: Comforting the younger, bringing medicines and potions from the Room of Requirement to help with the pain of torture…

They had even begun, in the evenings and late at night when the other students had woken from nightmares, to tell stories from what they knew of the exploits of Harry, Hermione and Ron. They didn't know all that many, unfortunately, as many of the details of their adventures were only known to them and probably Professor Dumbledore. No matter what time someone woke, there was always someone (usually Ms Weasley or Mr. Longbottom) up waiting to comfort them. But this practice was wearing them down and a conversation she had overheard as Ms Weasley and Mr Longbottom had approached the portrait hole this evening, turned her insides ice cold.

"_I don't know how much longer I'm going to be here, Neville," said Ms Weasley._

"_What? Why?" asked Neville, sounding alarmed._

"_You know what they did to Luna. It's only a matter of time before they figure out that," she dropped her voice to a near whisper as they came up to her, "Ron isn't home with Spattergroit. Or that Fred and George piss them off, or dad, or Bill and they come for me too. They know, at least Snape does, that we are the leaders of the DA now that the __**three**__ are gone. It's also only a matter of time before they come after us for that very fact."_

"_I know, you're right," Neville sighed, "and once we are out of the way, whether in hiding or captured, who will be there for the younger students? They're already very depressed and ready to back down. Something needs to happen to keep their hopes alive."_

'Something needs to happen to keep their hopes alive.' That phrase rang through her mind again and again. She agreed but what could be done? Who knows how long it would be before the _three_as they were called (because their names were forbidden) returned? It could take years. What if it took so long that no one was left at Hogwarts that had gone to school with them and could tell stories about them to those who didn't know them?

The fat lady had never been a religious person (so to speak) and she doubted that any deity would lower themselves to listen to the prayer of a portrait, but what could it hurt?

"_**I don't know if you can hear me**_

_**We need a miracle**_

_**Our hopes are shot**_

_**We need something to bring it back**_

_**Please, please if you can hear me**_

_**Bring us something to show that what we are doing means something**_

_**That it isn't all for nothing**_

_**Thank you."**_

Almost before she finished speaking, she sensed movement and turned her head. She gasped as three figures stepped from the shadows.


	2. Chapter 2

**Reviews**

**Favorite Stories/Favorite Authors**

**TheGrandDuchess: **Well, it's two of them, anyway. Remus is still alive at this point so I left him out.

**MaeSilverpaws1: **Thanks. Hope you like this one, too.

**Shiridan, maskedpainter, TheGrandDuchess, Cordelia Storyspinner, MaeSilverpaws1**

**Part 2**

Neville sat in the comfiest chair in the common room. Most of the older people in Gryffindor stayed away from those chairs as if their emptiness meant that the people who normally sat there would arrive at Hogwarts at any moment and take their seats as if nothing had happened. He occupied what had been deemed 'Harry's chair' for that very reason. It made him feel braver and as if he could feel what Harry would do or say in any situation.

It was very late and he knew, as the Fat Lady had informed him and Ginny on their return to the Tower, that all of the Gryffindors were accounted for. But he knew, even if he went upstairs, that he would be unable to sleep. After the things that Ginny had said on their way to the Tower that evening, he doubted she was sleeping either, though she had gone up the girls' staircase half an hour before.

Suddenly he heard a soft thump from the direction of the portrait hole. He got up suddenly and shook his head at the young woman who was also in the room, "No, I got it."

That soft thump was a signal they had worked out with the Fat Lady that told those inside the common room that there was someone outside the portrait hole that needed help or sanctuary or both.

The scene that met his eyes the moment he stepped through the portrait hole nearly robbed him of breath. There stood two men and a woman. At a glance, one of the men looked like…. But it couldn't be.

"H—Wait, no you're not him," Neville stammered, as he looked more closely at the man. There were many likenesses, but there was no scar and the eyes were different and not just in color. There had always been something about Harry's eyes that said he had never been a child, never experienced the innocence of one. This man, though his eyes were guarded, didn't have that.

Neville turned to the others and found himself gazing at one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen. Her eyes, were exactly the same as Harry's in shape and color. She looked startled and a little worried. He then turned to the final man and with another shock of surprise realized he knew him.

"But you died in the Department of Mysteries…"

With that Neville took out his wand, something he knew he should have done the moment he exited the relative safety of the common room. "Who are you?"

* * *

><p>Sirius looked at the young man standing before him and blinked. He recognized him somewhat, though he wasn't quite sure where it was he had seen him. Then it came to him, he'd last seen him in the fight in the Department of Mysteries, though it was obvious that this young man was older than that boy had been and had seen much since then.<p>

"My name is Sirius..."

The young man hissed and motioned for him to not finish that sentence, and then looked at the other two.

"My name is Lily…"

Again the young man motioned for her to stop and then looked at the other man.

"My name is James…"

James stopped, not needing the young man to tell him not to complete that statement.

"Well," the young man said thoughtfully, though he seemed rather taken aback, "I don't know enough about any of you to verify your statements, and until you do, you cannot enter Gryffindor Tower, so I will fetch someone who knows more than I do to help with that. But we must be quick about it," he added as if to himself and then disappeared into the portrait hole.

* * *

><p>Ginny was indeed still up, reading a book on curses and countercurses by the light of her wand.<p>

"Ginny?" asked Parvati's voice from the doorway, "Are you still awake?"

"Yeah," said Ginny, looking up in alarm, usually after one of the older students went to bed, they weren't disturbed unless it was an emergency.

"Neville asked if you could come down to the portrait hole. He said there was something you needed to see and something that you might be able to help with," said Parvati sounding confused.

"Okay," said Ginny getting up and pulling on a robe.

When she entered the common room, she saw Neville standing by the portrait hole.

"What's up?"

"Something's come up that could either be really good, or really bad, depending on what we find out. I knew that you would be able to tell whether or not they were really who they said they were better than I could since you know more about them," said Neville.

"Who?" asked Ginny as they stepped through the hole.

She gasped as she saw who was standing there.

* * *

><p>James was feeling a little out of sorts by the behavior of the young man. Sure the three of them were supposed to be dead, but what was truly wrong with the boy? He acted scared of them.<p>

When the portrait hole opened again to reveal the young man, now accompanied by a beautiful young woman with long red hair, they were slightly shocked to find wands pointing at them and a husky voice, that sounded like it was holding back tears, demanded, "If you are really James and Sirius, transform! No one could exactly copy someone's animagus form and I know Sirius's well."

Not quite understanding what all the caution was for, after all Voldemort had never gotten inside Hogwarts and why were they not just calling for Dumbledore?, James and Sirius transformed. The two students stared and the young woman couldn't hold back a sob.

"It's them," she whispered to the young man, "I would know that dog anywhere and as you can see, the stag is exactly like…"

"_**His**_ patronus," finished the young man nodding.

"I'm sorry," the young woman said in a choked voice, "but I don't know anything that would relate to Lily. _**He **_never talked much about his mum."

"Are you talking about H-?"

"Don't say that name!" whispered the two teenagers frantically.

Confused, but putting it aside for a few minutes, Lily motioned for the other two to transform back, "Well, now that you know it **is **James and Sirius, I think they could ask me a question only I would know. Would that be acceptable?"

The two nodded hesitantly.

James thought carefully, "How many letters, total, did _**he **_send you after the incident? And how many, if any, did you open?"

Lily didn't hesitate, "584*. One for every day from the day after the incident until he found out I was going out with you. All of which I returned unopened. And one on our wedding day which I opened."

James nodded, "It's her."

"Now that we have that taken care of," snapped Sirius suddenly, "there are a few questions I want answered immediately."

"Like what?" asked the young man.

"Why does this corridor carry the stench of fear and pain? And why can I not catch even a hint of my godson's scent or that of his two best friends?"

***I did the math. From the date of the incident in fifth year (I'm making it June 13****th****) until the date I came up with for Lily and James's first date in seventh year (Which I'm making January 18****th****) there were 583 days. And then I'm saying Snape sent one on her wedding day, begging her to reconsider. That makes 584 letters.**


	3. Chapter 3

**AN: **In case anyone who reads this story also reads "Reading With The Trio" I promise a new chapter will be on there sometime today.

**Part 3**

"Not here," whispered Ginny, "we'll explain everything as well as we can when we get inside, but it's not safe out here."

The three newcomers looked confused and more than slightly alarmed but Ginny knew they had moments only before someone might be by to check on the corridor. It was time for action.

"I have an idea about how to fix your presence so that no one will be the wiser who shouldn't know about it."

"How are we going to do that?" asked Neville.

"The Fidelius Charm," Ginny announced. "They know how to do it as it was done on them before Tom* fell the first time. And I have an idea about how to keep it from being unfairly discovered."

She turned to the people that mattered to Harry the most. "From what I have read on the Fidelius Charm, the secret can only be given by the Secret Keeper by word or note. Can you use the Charm on any secret or does it have to be a location?"

The three adults looked at each other and then Lily answered, "It can be any secret it doesn't have to be a location."

"Well, we need to give you three a safe place to hide where no one can find you. This can be in the common room if we use the Fidelius Charm and I think we should use Neville as the Secret Keeper."

"But, Ginny…"

"Remember our conversation from earlier. I may not be here much longer. And what if you are driven into hiding? You will need to be able to give information to the house elves about food because they can't go down to meals."

"But if I tell people about meals those people could tell THEM where they heard it."

"Not if we use the Fidelius Charm to hide who is the Secret Keeper for them."

"Huh?"

"If we use Lily, for example, as the Secret Keeper for the fact that you are the Secret Keeper for them, then no matter how many people you tell, they won't be able to tell anyone who told them because only Lily would be able to do that. So in order to find out that Lily, James and Sirius are here, THEY would have to find Lily, which only you could tell them where they were but they wouldn't know you were the Secret Keeper because even you wouldn't be able to tell them (it's circular reasoning). It's perfect. And that would also solve the problem about the Map."

Lily, James and Sirius were looking impressed but still confused about why all this was necessary.

"Ginny… that's brilliant! But why would there be a problem with the Map?"

"Because can you imagine what would happen if HE saw these three on the Map? He would do whatever he had to to come here."

Both Ginny and Neville shuddered at the thought.


End file.
